EQUAL CASES MUST BE TREATED EQUALLY 13-03-09
Carl I. Hagen asks Minister Dag Terje Andersen to clean up the Divers Committee
ABCNyheter – Ole Karlsen – 13-03-09
http://www.abcnyheter.no/node/85097
- Minister Must Intervene
The disclosure that the Diving Board has interpreted the same issues differently can end up in the Parliament. But first, Carl I. Hagen (FRP) asks Minister Dag Terje Andersen for an explanation .- “Similar cases must be treated equally, "he said.
Earlier this week, ABC News disclosed the government agency for treatment of compensation for pioneer divers, Dykkernemnda “Divers Board”, has treated identical applications differently. This was also confirmed by one of misconduct, Chief Physician, Kari Todnem.
It has done that after surviving at least three British pioneer divers who died on the job for the Norwegian oil adventure, has not been granted a one million compensation.
Parliamentary Vice Carl I Hagen (FrP) is now asking responsible minister, Dag Terje Andersen (Ap) in the Labor and Social Inclusion (AID), clarify a disputed interpretation of who should be entitled to compensation.
- I can not accept discrimination. There must be a fair treatment of like cases that controls the system.
- Board elections - that they have operated with a partial connection to the National - it is for me unknown. I will ask that AID explain what this means, "Hagen said to ABC News.
He has for some time engaged in the Tribunal's handling of applications from former pioneer divers and surviving from the diving era’s first decade. Also in December he asked the Minister questions about the matter.
It happened after Dagbladet had discussed the rejection of the British survivors.
Ministry keeps closed
AID, which is the Council's parent, would not comment on the information that there has been discrimination. In the Ministry indicates that only a diving board is an autonomous and independent body.
This sets Parliamentary Vice Carl I Hagen (FrP), who also sits on the Control and Constitutions Committee, now questioned.
- Previously, the Ministry has replied that the Committee is completely independent. But in an article from Stein Husby noted that there has been written correspondence, and that the Ministry has approved Council interpretation, he said, referring to a review Husby written hi 2006.
- If the first answer was indeed correct, then I will ask for a report on the role of the ministry had.
Compensation was created in 2004 because Parliament required that Norway took a moral and ethical responsibility for the sometimes unregulated conditions that existed until 1990.
- Parliament can react
The diving board was given the task to interpret the Parliamentary mandate and assess the applications that arrived. So far, more than 300 applications have been granted, and it has paid by about a half a billion kroner in compensation.
Pioneer divers:
In the pioneer period, there were 17 dead in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, most of them foreign.
ABC News has previously told about the second and the third was killed on the Norwegian continental shelf.
In 2005, Committee approved an application from a woman outside Stavanger. Her father was British and died at work in the North Sea. He had only Norwegian Health Insurance.
Her case is completely parallel with the British survivors whose compensation was denied in November of last year.
Hagen does not deny that the issue may come up again in Parliament, either by the Ministry itself put the case forward, or that requires the parliamentary majority.
- But it will depend on the ministry's response. Parliament can always react in retrospect, if a parliamentary majority disagree with something the Ministry has done, he said.
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